Standard Trevenant Item Lock 2.0

[Rooie]

More like 0.5 because it's objectively worse, but hey, at least it's in Standard.

Pokémon: 21
3 Trevenant-EX (PRC 19)
2 Oddish (AOR 1)
2 Gloom (AOR 2)
2 Vileplume (AOR 3)
3 Rowlet (SM 9)
3 Dartrix (SM 10)
3 Decidueye-GX (SM 12)
3 Shaymin-EX (ROS 77)

Trainer: 35
4 Lysandre
2 N
4 Professor Sycamore

4 Acro Bike
4 Level Ball
3 Timer Ball
4 Trainers' Mail
4 Ultra Ball

2 Float Stone

4 Forest of Giant Plants

Energy: 4
4 Grass Energy


Strategy:
The three main stars of the deck work in perfect unison:

Trevenant-EX has the single-energy attack Dark Forest, which does 20 damage and, much more importantly, prevents the Defending Pokémon from retreating during your opponent's next turn.

Vileplume prevents item usage, which obviously prevents your opponent from Switching or Escape Roping away, making their only possible escape routes a (most likely 1-of) Supporter (which they can't get with VS Seeker) or a switching Pokémon like Zoroark (which aren't very common in Standard).

After you've Lysandre'd something bulky (a Hoopa-EX, f'instance) into your opponent's active spot, you can start shooting at their bench with your small army of Decidueye-GX. Simply shoot two benched EX's and tree-punch the Defending Pokémon to death and bam, you've won.

Edit: -2 N, -2 Grass Energy, +4 Acro Bike

 

[TuxedoBlack]

A few thoughts for your consideration:

• Why run 4 Ns? You could potentially help your opponent. I'd suggest replacing 2 of these with Professor Kukui for damage output boost and some meager drawing.
• Consider running a Parallel City (replacing 1 FoGP Stadium) in order to remove the Shaymin EXs (fairly easy 1hKO targets) from your bench.
• Assuming you've done some play-testing already, are the 6 G sufficient?
• Trevenant EX, with 3 attached energy, can inflict 110 damage. So, in many case you'll need to 2HKO opponents' "big" HP EX Pokémon. Has that damage output been sufficient to win games against decks running "big" HP EX Pokémon before you decked-out?

I hope you find these comments helpful.

 

[VillagerHoss]

In addition, you may want fewer Lysandre, and adding a couple cards like Ninja Boy will make sure you get your Trevenant EX on the field ASAP. So far, your deck is pretty intimidating with Vileplume in your deck, since your deck has more Pokémon than the average deck, it's giving you the advantage!

 

[Rooie]

The whole point of the deck is to lock a "useless" Pokémon in your opponent's active spot with Dark Forest and chip away at their bench with Feather Arrows, so doing more damage to the Active Pokémon would actually be actively harmful. You want to keep that Pokémon alive as long as possible, because if your opponent can't find an Olympia or whatever, they can't attack at all.

I suppose a couple N's and Grass Energies could be replaced with something else (Acro Bikes, maybe, because this deck would really benefit from a quick set-up), but I feel that the Lysandre count is right, because if your opponent does manage to find an Olympia and use it to retreat, you really want to have a Lysandre handy to continue locking them up (remember, you're under item lock, so VS Seeker is a no-go).

 

[TuxedoBlack]

Any "useless" opponent's Pokémon you might bring to the Defending position may not be useless for long given your opponent plays a Ninja Boy, Olympia, and/or Pokémon Ranger. Plus, opponents playing Hex Maniac can slow your progress too. So, the "lock" may not last. Even if you could manage to maintain the lock for a "long" period of time, would you even have enough resources to sustain your possibly taking 6 prizes (just curious to know what play-testing results you may have had)?

 

[Fayld]

I am also curious given the number of Volcanion decks out there currently. That said, seeing this deck list made me stop and think about my cards at home and what version of this I might create. I will admit that I happen to have a soft spot for Trevenant EX though. Was part of a funky growth deck I ran with Sceptile EX, Sceptile, Serperior, Vivillon, Ariados deck. Yeah. If the question you are asking yourself is "Ye Gods, why are there so many stage 2's," don't ask. It was super fun though. Not super effective, but fun

 

[Rooie]

I haven't tested it, so if you want cold hard facts, you should turn away. If you want meaningless assumptions, though, have I got some for you.

If you look at most meta deck lists, you might notice that they don't really run the mentioned cards. You might see a Ranger or Olympia here and there, but they're generally one-ofs (and if you get lucky, your opponent might discard them on their first turn, thinking that they can get them back with VS Seeker). I do agree that Ninja Boy decks could be problematic, especially if your opponent turns every Pokémon on their field into an attacker, but I feel like that's rare enough to not be much of a bother (and most decks have auto-losses anyway, so...). Hex Maniac is much more common, yes, but it's still generally a one-of and your opponent needs to have it in the same hand as a Switch or Escape Rope to actually make proper use of it.

The prize question is pretty good, though. I'd assume that unless you get a really good opening hand, you're going to have two Decidueyes out for most of the game. That's 40 damage per turn, so a Shaymin would go down in 3 turns, most EXs and some GXs (unbelted) would go down in 5 turns and most Megas and other GX's would go down in 6 turns. Assuming that your opponent doesn't put down two Shaymins, that's about 8 turns of Feather Arrowing and then knocking out the Active Pokémon, which doesn't sound like too much to me. Most non-EX/GX decks are probably going to be auto-losses, though.

 

[uncleyuri]

Nice deck. Has a lot of potential. My concern would be the amount of Garbodor and Hex Maniac you see anymore. Seems like Garbodor is making its way into everything. Even with a turn one vileplume hex can bugger your whole plan.

 

[VillagerHoss]

The only other thing I'd like to note is that your tricky spot will be the time you have before evolving Dartrix into Decidueye GX. You may want to add 2 or so Wally to your deck.